District 1-AA Baseball Tournament: Patriots upset Elizabethton, 14-8
Published 12:34 pm Saturday, May 7, 2016
It just wasn’t the No. 2 seeded Cyclones’ night, as the No. 7 seed Sullivan East Patriots rallied to a 14-8 upset Friday at Dobyns-Bennett during the District 1-AA Baseball Tournament.
“We have been targeting this day for two or three week,” said East head coach Mike Breuninger. “Once you get to the point in your season where you are losing games and you know you are not going to win the conference, really where you finish doesn’t matter. You know on May the 6th, this is the game that matters.”
The Patriots tossed up three runs during the first three innings, before the Cyclones got on boarded in the bottom of the third with Drew Wetzel coming home off an error.
After a scoreless fourth, Sullivan East came alive in the fifth as the Patriots rallied for eight runs. The top of the fifth was highlighted by a 3-RBI triple from East’s Jeffery Lunsford. The Cyclones were able to snag three runs in the bottom of the inning to make the game 11-4 heading into the sixth.
In the top of the sixth, the Patriots picked up two more runs, while the Cyclones recorded three more of their on in the bottom half.
Both the Patriots and Cyclones recorded a run in the final frame.
“Our guys will learn from their mistakes,” EHS head coach Ryan Presnell said. “We certainly had our mistakes to night. . .This time of year you can not make mistakes. Everything is magnified wether it is good or bad. These guys know that.
These guys did not come in here to go 0-2 in the tournament, but they know they can,” Presnell continued. “We believe that we will not, and we are going to come back in here Sunday and put forth a better effort.”
The Cyclone will pick things back up Sunday at 2 p.m.
